Winnie The Pooh: A Valentine For You: Special Edition

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All Rise...

Judge Dan Mancini depends on the kindness of fictional stuffed bears.

The Charge

"This could be the room of any small boy, but it happens to be the room
of Christopher Robin…"—Narrator

The Case

In 1926, British author Alan Alexander Milne unleashed the world's cuddliest
fictional bear on Western civilization with his children's book
Winnie-the-Pooh, about the pets and stuffed toys of a young boy named
Christopher Robin and their adventures in an idyllic imaginary landscape called
the Hundred Acre Wood. But let's face facts: These days, when we think of Winnie
the Pooh, it is Disney's version of Milne's creation that comes to mind. 1977's
The Many Adventures of Winnie the
Pooh collected three short-form Pooh animated adventures—"Winnie
the Pooh and the Honey Tree," "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery
Day," and "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too"—into a
critically and financially successful theatrical feature that launched a
franchise for the House of Mouse. A string of follow-up features as well as
animated television series and home video releases followed.

Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine for You isn't a theatrical feature or a
direct-to-video movie, but a repackage of a made-for-television holiday special
augmented by a few episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, an
animated series that ran on ABC for four seasons in the late '80s and early
'90s. The disc contains a pair of main programs that can be played individually
or strung together with a Play All option.

• A Valentine for You (22:14) As Valentine's Day
approaches, Pooh is troubled by Christopher Robin's newfound appreciation of the
fairer sex—specifically a girl named Winifred. Tigger, Pooh, Piglet,
Rabbit, Gopher, and Eeyore hatch a cockamamie scheme to find a mythical
"Smitten" to heal Christopher from the bite of the love bug. Soon the
group is lost in the deep recesses of the Hundred Acre Wood. The story is
punctuated by a trio of brief musical numbers: Owl sings "Girls Are Like
Boys," the whole gang collaborates on "When the Love Bug Bites,"
and Christopher Robin sings "Places in the Heart.

A Valentine for You doesn't look much better than an elaborate
episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (which isn't bad per se,
but definitely not up to feature animation standards), but its musical numbers
and narration by David Warner (Time
Bandits) infuse it with at least a tiny bit of the charm of The Many
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (that film is a musical adventure with
memorable narration by Sebastian Cabot). A Valentine for You is also
notable because it is voice actor Paul Winchell's final appearance as Tigger
(Winchell was the first to voice the mad cat for Disney, and owned the role for
over 20 years). It's an entertaining show that, like the best of Disney's Pooh
adventures, expertly mimics the gentility and sweetness of Milne's original
stories. It doesn't hold a candle to The Many Adventures of Winnie the
Pooh, but it is arguably the best of Pooh's many made-for-television
adventures.

• "Un-Valentine's Day" (27:32) When persnickety
Rabbit calls a meeting to grouse about the glut of Valentine's Day cards each
year, the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood agree to cancel Valentine's Day.
Fortunately, once one of them secretly breaks their pledge, the avalanche of
holiday giving begins anew. Eventually, the animals stage a Valentine's Day
pageant for Christopher Robin, directed by Rabbit.

"Un-Valentine's Day" was the first episode of The New
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh's second season. Here it's coupled with the
second half of the season's fourth episode, "Three Little Piglets," a
story that finds Winnie the Pooh telling his version of "The Three Little
Pigs," full of honey trees, Big Bad Bunnies, and masked Tiggers. The two
episodes of the show are innocuous but disposable. "Un-Valentine's
Day," in particular, comes off as a mish-mash of two plots, neither of
which is particularly engaging.

In addition to the two main features, there's a bonus episode of The New
Adventures of Winnie the Pooh called "My Hero." When Piglet saves
Tigger from drowning, the enthusiastic cat insists on paying the pig back, even
if his efforts are more bothersome than helpful. There's also a "Catch the
Love Bug" game that involves using your DVD player's remote control to
catch virtual fireflies in a virtual jar. Extremely young children may enjoy it,
but it'll bore anyone else to tears.

The transfers of the various programs are a mixed bag of disappointment.
"A Valentine for You" appears to have been fully restored. The
animation is crisp and the color palette bright. Unfortunately, the image is
riddled with persistent combing artifacts. "Un-Valentine's Day,"
"Three Little Piglets," "and "My Hero" are more stable,
but also softer with murkier colors.

All of the programs have Dolby stereo audio tracks (along with French and
Spanish dubs). Again, the restoration work on A Valentine for You is
obvious. Its track is crisp and bright, limited only by its age and two-channel
source. The other programs offer tracks that, while clean and well-mixed, are
slighted muted with pinched dynamic range.

To put it bluntly, there's nothing all that special about this Special
Edition of Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine for You. Priced lower, it would
be a decent enough time-waster for preschoolers. The fact that it'll set you
back the same amount as the far superior The Many Adventures of Winnie the
Pooh, even though its four made-for-television stories have a combined
running time of only 50 minutes, is a deal breaker. Rent this one for the kids,
but don't buy it.

The Verdict

Guilty as charged.

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